According to a conservative estimate by a researcher at Michigan State University, 5 to 7 percent of food in the U.S. could be affected. The Post cites several examples: A man in Virginia was convicted last year of selling 10 million pounds of frozen catfish as more expensive grouper, red snapper or flounder. In 2004, scientists at the University of North Carolina estimated that 77 percent of red snapper sold in the U.S. was actually a different kind of fish. The list goes on to include honey, caviar, fruit juice and many other products sold in national grocery stores, restaurants and local markets.

Focused on food safety, the FDA long overlooked what the food actually was. Now industry groups such as the Grocery Manufacturers Association are pushing the FDA to use new technology and start catching mislabeled items. Tools such as DNA testing have made fraud detection relatively easy. Last year, two high school students in New York randomly tested 66 foods bought at markets in Manhattan. With the help of scientists at Rockefeller University and the American Museum of Natural History, they found that 11 of those foods were not what their labels said they were.

U.S. labor investigators recovered $240.8 million in back wages for American workers last year amid an intensified crackdown on pay abuses in low-skill industries.

That newly released total – which reflects the amount of back wages that employers agreed to pay, or were ordered to pay, following government investigations – amounted to $890 per affected worker.

However, a recent report prepared for the Labor Department suggests that the back wage recoveries only scratch the surface of what underpaid workers actually are owed.

The report by Eastern Research Group, issued in December, estimated that in California and New York alone, minimum wage violations in 2011 cost workers at least $32.7 million a week—or about $1.7 billion a year. At least 50,000 families in the two states suffered income losses due to minimum wage violations, and at least 14,800 families were brought below the poverty level, the report found.

An attempted crackdown on wage and hour violations on two Oregon berry farms has ended in a retreat by the U.S. Labor Department, which dropped all charges against two growers it had accused of failing to pay the minimum wage to about 1,000 workers.

The case has brought scrutiny to one of the Labor Department’s most potent weapons—the “hot goods” provision of federal law that allows it to halt the interstate shipment of goods produced in violation of wage laws. It is often used to fight alleged wage theft in the garment industry, among others.

With an estimated $5.5 million dollars worth of highly perishable blueberries on the line, the Oregon farms–Pan American Berry Growers and B&G Ditchen LLC–were threatened with a court order during their 2012 harvest. It would have barred them from shipping their produce unless they paid back

A father and his 2-year-old son at a gun rights demonstration last March in Austin, Texas (Photo by Erika Rich)

After being thwarted in Congress following the 2012 school shooting rampage in Newtown, Conn., gun control activists have scored some important victories in states around the country.

One of the biggest wins came in Washington State. In November, voters by a wide margin approved a state ballot measure extending, to gun shows and other private firearms transactions, a requirement for buyer background checks.

But which side has the momentum in the struggle around the nation pitting advocates of tighter controls against supporters of expanded gun rights? That remains a tough call.

With the clash now a state-by-state fight, the dueling camps make competing claims about who has gained ground and who figures to fare better in the years immediately ahead.